1 online resource (xi, 225 pages)

In a conversation with his physician, a nineteenth-century resident of Paris who lived near the railroad described sensations of brilliant color generated by the sounds of trains passing in the night. This patient - a synaesthete - experienced "color hearing" for letters, words, and most sounds. Synaesthesia, a phenomenon now known to science for more than a century, is a rare form of perception in which one sense may respond to stimuli received by other senses. This fascinating book provides the first historical treatment of synaesthesia and a closely related mode of perception called eideticism. Kevin Dann discusses divergent views of synaesthesia and eideticism of the past hundred years and explores the controversies over the significance of these unusual modes of perception

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-216) and index

From un Truc to occult truth: the fascination with synaesthesia in Fin de siecle France -- A transcendental language of color: synaesthesia and the astral world -- The meaning of synaesthesia is meaning -- Sensory unity before the fall: synaesthesia, eideticism, and the loss of Eden -- The gift: Vladimir Nabokov's eidetic technique -- Conclusion: the redemption of thinking

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